Okay. What's it been now, four days? The honeymoon is over. Pat Quinn has been in the job long enough now. It's time to ask the question. It's time to ask the coach about the coach killer.

What the hell is he going to do with Dustin Penner?

Quinn doesn't dodge it. He could say he needs to become more familiar with his team, yadda, yadda, yadda. But you interview for a job, you better have some answers for some of the tougher questions and that's certainly one of the toughest on the team he takes over.

'GOOD, YOUNG PROSPECT'

"Dustin is a young man who established himself as a good young prospect, good, enough for Edmonton to go out and make a restricted free agent signing of him," Quinn began.

"This should be a good situation for him. And it's not been working out. There are reasons behind that. My job is helping him be the best he can be.

"Obviously there are things he can change. I'm sure he knows lots of it that has to be done. But you have to be willing to do it.

"Sometimes life goes by and a career goes by and you've done nothing. You can't be motivated by money. At some point you have to think about what you want to accomplish and what you want to be known as. You have to be motived inside.

"I don't know him real well but I intend to know him real well."

In those few words Pat Quinn defined himself.

Those are words which at the same time Penner has enough room to know he has a chance to put his rocky relationship with Craig MacTavish behind him and get a fresh start and yet know if he doesn't take advantage of that, life with his new 66-year-old father figure is going to be even less enjoyable.

It's obvious what has to happen here. There are guys new GM Steve Tambellini isn't going to be able to move.

Those guys Quinn is going to have to coach up. But now Tambelini has to get to work on remodeling the rest of the team to give Quinn and Tom Renney a much better chance to succeed and coach the game they both want to coach here.

This very much became Steve Tambellini's hockey club with the hirings of Quinn and Renney to coach this team in tandem. Other than the week or so around the trade deadline, there wasn't much he could do in his first year of being general manager with Kevin Lowe booted upstairs.

There was some question of how much the job was going to be truly his with Lowe looking over his shoulder and new owner Daryl "MacT is not going anywhere" Katz hiding back behind the curtains somewhere.

But these moves made it his team because they were made with his background and knowledge and relationships with the people he hired. And when your first major hiring as a GM is somebody who has spent a significant part of his career as a GM himself that shows some security and confidence in yourself, although that doesn't come across when Tambellini stands behind a microphone at a press conference.

"I believe in a coach and manager working together on all phases. I'm not going to walk in and say 'I need this' and 'I need that.' And I believe in separation. Managers manage and coaches coach," said Quinn.

"I have a fairly good feel for what's here. I like skilled teams. You can't all be foot soldiers who dump in and bang the puck. There looks like there are some nifty little guys here. I like offence if you hold on to the puck," he says with words Ales Hemsky can by happy to hear and real concerned about at the sametime.

"Move and use the skills you have. Lose it and be damn gritty to get it back," adds Quinn.

READ THAT OVER

Hemsky, Andrew Cogliano, Sam Gagner and particularly Robert Nilsson, the other coach killer, also should read that over a couple of times.

And so should Tambellini.

Quinn knows what size can bring to a team. He was size. And as for the gritty-get-it-back and play-with-the-puck team he wants to have here, that means winning faceoffs and winning races to the puck and battles by the boards and between now and the time Quinn steps behind the bench, it's his job to get him some of those guys.